


Human Enough

by Leidolette



Category: The Last Unicorn (1982)
Genre: Aging, Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 16:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: Death and a unicorn visit Molly at the end of her days.





	Human Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alana/gifts).

> Happy Trick or Treat 2019, Alana! Here's a treat for ya :)

The moment Schmendrick set foot in the unicorn's forest, she knew. The wind whispered that a man who was not just a man had come. The birds chirped that the tip of a pointed hat bobbed among their nests. The mice squeaked that the hem of a patched blue cloak had brushed past their ears.

So when Schmendrick found the unicorn in her favorite glen, she wasn't surprised to see him -- but she was surprised by his words. "Molly is dying," he said after the barest of greetings. He took off his hat and held it in his hands.

"Dying?" the unicorn said. Had it really been so many years? Perhaps it had been. But then, it wasn't only years that could kill a mortal -- anything could, really.

"Yes, dying," Schmendrick confirmed. His sleepy eyes were sad and his face showed no trace of his wry smile. "And she's asking for you."

For the second time in a matter of decades, the unicorn left her forest. This time, there was no hesitation.

"You'll make better time without me. I'll catch up when I can." Schmendrick called after her from edge of the forest holding the reigns of his already exhausted horse. The unicorn put ground between them.

Once more, the unicorn traveled the strange web of man's roads. It was not such a journey, though, this time. Molly didn't live at the ends of the earth, but on the outskirts of a quiet farming village in a kingdom that neighbored the wild land that held the unicorn's forest.

The unicorn slowed from her traveling canter to a walk and approached a small cottage with a garden and a thatched roof, just where Schmendrick said it would be. The unicorn pawed her cloven forehoof at the door. Anyone that might happen to see her could only think that Molly was training white mares to do tricks for the circus.

It took a long time for Molly to answer the door. The unicorn heard a muffled 'I'm coming, I'm coming,' then shuffling, then a coughing fit and labored breathing. The door creaked open slowly.

Molly's eyes were dim when she first peeked her head out, but it was like a new dawn rose in them when she saw the unicorn. That mix of wonder and wistfulness overtook her face again, just as it had the first time Molly had set eyes on the unicorn.

"Oh, you came, you came." Molly's voice was scratchy and low.

"Yes," the unicorn said, letting the simple fact be its own joy.

"How dare you come to me now?" But Molly was smiling, and she opened her arms for the unicorn. The unicorn stepped into them, though as a unicorn she felt little longing for touch or physical comfort.

After a moment, Molly stepped aside and welcomed the unicorn in. Molly limped as she closed the door and her back was stooped. She was older -- indeed, considerably so. Schmendrick must have been as well when the unicorn saw him in the forest, but any recognition of that fact had been driven out of her mind by the enormity of the news he delivered. When Molly sat, her legs and arms were shaking.

Still barefoot though, the unicorn noticed. And, after Molly had begun to talk awhile, her speech peppered with words of both snappy practicality and deep kindness, the unicorn was relieved to realize that Molly was still herself, as well.

* * *

The sun rose the next morning, but Molly did not. It was as if she had been using all her strength to hold out for the unicorn's arrival and now that she was finally here the engine of her body could begin the process of shutting down.

The unicorn nosed Molly's hand as she lay in bed, and the woman brought it up to stroke the unicorn's long neck. The unicorn hoped that the act might bring Molly some tiny measure of comfort. As Molly stroked, the unicorn could sense the infirmity in that hand, the presence of the affliction slowly killing Molly. 

Some men believed that a unicorn could heal any injury, cure any disease. Most did not stop to wonder if they _would_. 

Molly did not ask. The unicorn did not offer.

The unicorn did little things for Molly, like fetch water and bread, or bring the candle close. It would have made a strange scene for anyone watching -- a shining, immortal creature moving among the plain dirt and stone of a cottager's house. That night, the unicorn asked Molly the question that haunted the unicorn's own thoughts on moonless nights:

"Do you have regrets?"

Molly laughed. 

"Oh, unicorn! I regret endlessly -- I dream up a new regret every night."

"Any that I might ease?"

"You ease one right now, just by being here." Molly's eyes became soft, as they sometimes had before. "Oh, unicorn, you will stay, won't you? I have no fear of death... but I should like to know you're there, at the end."

"Yes, I will stay." And the unicorn kept her word.

It took several more days for Schmendrick to arrive, and by then the end was very close. Molly could no longer awaken. She was mired deep in an unconsciousness that was not quite sleep and not quite death. Her breath came in shallow gasps. 

Schmendrick stopped when he entered the room, his eyes went to Molly on the bed. "You haven't healed her?"

The unicorn turned her impassive face towards him and cocked her head. "You know the ways of magic as well as I, magician."

"Yes, but..." Schmendrick sighed. "I thought there might be something."

The unicorn didn't answer. Now the unicorn noted his age as well.

Molly was mortal, and it was the lot of mortal creatures to die. The unicorn may be the guardian of her forest, but Molly was more connected to the fox and the turtledove and the badger than the unicorn could ever be, for all mortal creatures were kin in death.

The unicorn was not mortal. But she had been, for a little while. She remembered her healthy, lovely, dying mortal body; she remembered what it meant to cry.

For every one of the unicorn's brothers and sisters, whether a death belonged to a wren or a woman held little distinction. The unicorn found that it held a distinction for her now. 

And so she turned to Schmendrick and asked a favor of him.

Dismayed, but seemingly nor surprised, Schmendrick closed his eyes, gestured, chanted; and true magic moved through him with more ease than she had ever witnessed.

The unicorn's fur slid away, except for that on her head, which lengthened into strands of long white hair. The transformation was easier this time; whether due to Schmendrick's increased skill or the unicorn's familiarity, she did not know. Soon the unicorn was standing on two legs in front of Molly's bed, naked and mortal.

Only at this point was the unicorn grateful that Molly was not awake; Molly never did like to see the unicorn in the body of a woman. But the unicorn had already given Molly what comfort she could, and now Molly was beyond even that. It was perfectly within a unicorn's nature to be selfish, and the unicorn now indulged in comfort herself, in a way that only a human body would do. In fact, what her human body was _already_ doing, unprompted.

The unicorn lifted a hand to her face to feel the wet drop of the tear on her cheek.

Schmendrick tentatively approached. He too had tears in his eyes. 

Human enough to cry, the both of them.

Together they sat at the edge of Molly's bed. The unicorn picked up one of Molly's hands and brought it to her cheek; it was paradoxically soft from age and rough from long labor. The unicorn kissed Molly's fingers, then palm, then wrist. When the unicorn returned the hand to the blanket, teardrops glinted like glass on the skin.

The unicorn's sobs began in earnest then. Great, heaving things that shook her shoulders and tightened her chest.

And the regret crashed through her afresh, wider and stronger than the tide. _Oh, Molly, Molly,_ cried the unicorn's human heart -- and it did not stop. 

The unicorn felt every bit of it, as a mortal would. After a time, death stole into the house and stopped the weak rise and fall of Molly's chest, and then all that was left in the room was a unicorn, a magician, and a regret so heavy that nothing could move.


End file.
